Let's Talk About…the Kit and Caboodle

Ok. I have a friend whose primary language is not English. Sometimes she will ask me to explain something she heard that just doesn’t make any sense to her. For example, she recently asked me what “long in the tooth” means. She couldn’t figure out why someone thought long teeth were either an appropriate thing to comment upon or that it had anything to do with anything.

Of course, I responded by telling her to get off her high horse and look it up.

Well, needless to say, that didn’t go swimmingly.

After doing a little research, she told me she was still having a bit of trouble figuring out American colloquialisms. She didn’t think elbows had any grease or even a remarkable amount of skin oil. So, she didn’t “get” what product to use when someone told her to use a little elbow grease to clean a particularly difficult roasting pan.

She also wasn’t sure that her elbow had anything to do with cleaning a pan. I explained the concept of extra effort, but could not explain what elbows or grease had to do with getting something spanking clean.

She grew increasingly perplexed over the next few weeks and asked, “Why are these sayings so weird?” I responded before I could catch myself, “You know, ‘Y’ is a crooked letter.” That one was tough to explain.

Pretty soon, she was texting me these oddities on a fairly regular basis. I wondered why I had opened this can of worms in the first place but patiently answered her questions.

After trying my best and seeing her mounting frustration with American vernacular, I thought, “There has to be more than one way to skin a cat,” so I sent her a list of colloquialisms and made a date to discuss each with her over a nice glass of wine to head her off at the pass. I thought that a tete-a tete was definitely what the doctor ordered.

A couple of days later, we sat down, ordered some starters and discussed the meaning of words like “akimbo,” “topsy-turvy,” “doohickey,” “fiddlesticks” and “hullabaloo.” She couldn’t get past the notion that fiddles are played with a bow and not sticks. I was gobsmacked.

So, I tried a new tactic. I thought I would test the waters and so I asked her, “What do you think ‘when it rains, it pours’ means?” She said, “That’s ridiculous. Sometimes when it rains, it just sprinkles. It doesn’t always pour. That is crazy.” I thought, “Come on now, don’t take everything so literally. It’s really a piece of cake.”

She said, “I don’t want any cake” and got up in frustration and said she had had enough and thought it was time for her to go home. I replied, “Whatever floats your boat!”

What a kerfuffle.

Well, the bill finally came. She said, “Well, we should leave about a 20% tip. What is 20% of $42.39?” I said, “Just ballpark it. About $8.50.” She looked at me and said, “What in the world does a ballpark have to do with the bill? I know that a ballpark usually has something to do with baseball and we definitely aren’t talking about baseball.” But really, don’t all roads lead to baseball?

We eventually gave up those lingo discussions when I realized she wasn’t responding to my emails or texts. Had she ghosted me? The idea made my stomach hurt like the dickens which made me want to toss my cookies. Well, as my dad used to say, “No good deed goes unpunished.”

But as my father-in-law also used to say, “Well, I thought you knocked it out of the park, honey. You may not like that she isn’t talking to you much anymore, but it beats a jab in the eye with a sharp stick.”

Now we are friends again. It’s just water under the bridge.